'Louie' finishes its first season on a high note

'Louie' finishes its first season on a high note

Last night's final two episodes of Louie were as provocative, emotional, and downright filthy as the rest of the series. It nimbly moved from slapsticky bits - like Ricky Gervais shoving cottonballs in Louie's mouth - to more serious meditations on the nature of relationships, and each moment drove at the same point: There's nothing else on TV like this.

The first episode, 'Gym,'Â used a seemingly endless supply of scatological jokes to remind Louie - and us - that we're all going to die. What's grosser and more basely animalistic than this bit about poops? Oh. Right. Our own mortality. In the second episode, Louie had to admit that he's sort of a miserable loner, except for those moments when he's on stage. The most important relationship in his life, other than with his kids, is with is audience, and that's a weird hard thing to realize.